Integrated Communications and The Dawn of Agile Engagement

Static is not an option any longer for communicators, neither is having silo'd pr and marketing groups.
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Static is not an option any longer for communicators, neither is having silo'd pr and marketing groups.
Organizations will benefit from having PR and marketing and digital and anyone else in communications/external work together to understand audiences, strategize as one, and ultimately use owned media to attain earned media (and earned media to drive creation of owned media).

PR and Marketing must learn to work together (if they are silo’d). Either integrate PR and Marketing functionality or work closely together. PR has always been an exercise of listening and earning media. This can deliver a multiplier effect for the marketing dept’s strategy. Marketing’s content is courted by PR as material for courting influencers and marketing’s research is needed by pr to help target and measure their strategies. I will refer to efforts as “communications” or “integrated communications”.

The process and the work flow of Agile Engagement require that listening, acting, reacting and reviewing be a continuous loop. Pumping content into the digital ecosystem across paid, earned and owned media with strategic frequency, will keep the conversation around your brand alive by providing ongoing fodder to engage audiences.

Are your marketing goals revenue-focused? If so, focus your content marketing goals on generating leads or driving immediate revenue opportunities (e-commerce). Is brand awareness your business goal? Then your content marketing strategy should incorporate thought leadership pieces, search engine optimization strategies and the like. Or are you tasked to drive alignment with your sales team? In that case, content marketing will play a large role in retention and crosssell strategies. Are your communications goals revenue-focused? Is brand awareness your goal? Are you tasked to drive alignment with sales? Is driving traffic your objective? Some or all of the above?

Distribion is a marketing automation company that serves a very specific marketplace. Its customers are all in highly regulated industries, such as healthcare, insurance, financial services and casino gaming, and its product allows the sales channel to access corporate-approved marketing materials to send to prospects. Because Distribion’s target markets are all very regulated, it is important for all marketing and sales messages to be approved at the corporate level to ensure the communication doesn’t run afoul of any rules. Deb McAlister-Holland, Director of Marketing, Distribion, said the pain point for its clients is compliance. For example, she mentioned one customer who had to deal with 13 federal agencies and 50 state agencies when marketing in the United States. She added that Distribion’s marketing pain point was building the brand, and creating awareness about its highly specialized product.

Monitor and Listen for audience interests, your brand’s Social Echo and industry-wide sentiments that may be trending at any given time.

10 times more searches for “cosmetic dentist” than for “prosthodontist” – Source: Google

Knowing where your audience is and what they like to do is important to identifying tactics/content types to focus on.

Distribion’s product is very highly targeted to a limited group of industries, but the company still creates content for a wide range of online visitors. The website focuses on the company’s products and services, but the blog is more general and geared more toward anyone interested in marketing. McAlister-Holland said, &quot;We have something to offer both sales-qualified leads and tire kickers, and it allows us to reach out to a much broader audience and build our brand at a very low cost.&quot; She said the broader blog content drives conversions from people who self-select by saying they want to know more about Distribion’s products and services. Whenever McAlister-Holland felt there was a particularly high-value piece of content, be it a whitepaper or blog post, she sought to leverage that content for bylined articles in other media, and also sought speaking engagements with Distribion’s executives. The goal was to reach at least four spin-off opportunities each quarter, and the marketing team well exceeded that goal.

Content created by you to support integrated campaigns and amplify brand voice Redistribute and reuse components of longer form content in a variety of formats and channels. For example: An executive’s conference speech might be turned into a long-form video, short video excerpts, a shared slideshow, multiple blog entries, an infographic, a whitepaper, tweets, etc.* 3rd party content shared with your audience Newsjack Jay Baer – full text transcript of each podcast. Turn that into a blog post.

Strategic partners | reached out to peers who aren’t quite in Distribion’s specific niche. That way, they are serving the same space, but aren’t really competitors. Spin-offs | Distribion sought to leverage white papers or blog posts, etc. for bylined articles in other media, and also sought speaking engagements with Distribion’s executives. Multi-audience | Distribion’s product is very highly targeted to a limited group of industries, but the company still creates content for a wide range of online visitors. The website focuses on the company’s products and services, but the blog is more general and geared more toward anyone interested in marketing.

We Need To Create Proactive Messaging Proactive Messaging Should Be Created With Optimization

Content packages

Only YOU will know what to measure. Only YOU will know what success looks like to you.

Company revenue grew 40% over previous year. Cost per acquisition is down from 15% the previous year. Blog traffic increased more than 2,000% with weekly blog traffic improving from 700-117,000 visits per week

Content packages

The process and the work flow of Agile Engagement require that listening, acting, reacting and reviewing be a continuous loop. Pumping content into the digital ecosystem across paid, earned and owned media with strategic frequency, will keep the conversation around your brand alive by providing ongoing fodder to engage audiences.

3.
Agile engagement takes advantage of convergence happening across paid, earned and owned media PAID OWNED EARNED MEDIA MEDIA MEDIA The lines between them are blurredA brand pays to Publicity gained Conversation now A brand continues across all place ad or owns when an content in a a channel influencer Earned media is channel promotes a brand increasing in importance CONTENT drives them all.• Advertising• Events • Company blogs • Company website • Press pickup • Blog mention Increased mobile usage is accelerating earned• Direct • Company social • Social sharing media growthMarketing accounts • Word of mouth Ecommerce is becoming embedded into all, with the option to buy from a channel, ad or link

7.
1 | LISTEN, ANALYZE, STRATEGIZEMonitor what’s being said about your brand and industryacross all channels and identify audience interests, trending,industry-sentiments, and who is moving content key to yourinterests.

26.
More Multimedia = More Views * The number of stories with downloadable files such as PDFs, PPTs, DOCs is significantly fewer than those without, however the data shows the potential for very high visibility when such assets are included along with other multimedia assets. Source: PR Newswire Web Analytics, June 2012